I have seen an answer on SE site from a moderator election candidate that mentioned something which seems unusual - the idea that, if elected, one of the approaches the candidate would take would be to try to resolve some of the possible site issues/conflicts by mediating.
Is that considered a good idea/role for a moderator by experts in community building?
For the purposes of this question I'm defining "mediator" role as a 3rd party who discusses the issue with both sides of the conflict and attempts to resolve it with as minimum friction/losses as possible, ideally amicably, based on the input of both parties.
Just to clarify - the scope of this question involves only the situations where a moderator is truly an uninvolved third party - not a part of the conflict yet. Also, I'm making an assumption that amicable conflict resolution is something that is desirable to the community (which is an assumption I'm open to being challenged).
Anecdotally, I have seen this approach work very well - both as a mediator and as conflict party. Presumably, this is because in many cases the conflicts arise due to miscommunication and a mediation by a neutral 3rd party frequently help address miscommunication in a situation where 2 parties aren't inclined to make an effort to listen to one another for obvious reasons. However, I only saw this stated as an idea by one candidate, ever, and never seen it actually practiced by SE moderators in any venue I was privy to.
TL;DR: it seems like a good idea but observably a rare one. This leads me to suspect it has downsides I'm not aware of.